I've been working on a multiplayer 2D top down shooter called "The Seventh". I initially started it as a World War II shooter (I was a huge Medal of Honor:Allied Assault fan), but my art buddy wanted something a bit more original. We are in the process of updating the graphics so the continuity of the style is still a work in progress.

The game itself is in playable form, there are still some features that need to be implemented (more game types, improved AI to name a few). We are kicking around some ideas for some unique game types, but our first priority is getting the core game play locked down. All in all I would say the game is roughly 60% completed.

Capture the Flag, King of the Hill game types and some custom game types

Smarter AI, team based AI

DISCLAIMER:The current sounds are from COD2 and there are some filler graphics from Counter Strike 2D -- these will both be replaced with original content soon. Hopefully this doesn't violate any rules of this forum, if it does I will remove this post immediately.

Technology:

libGDX for input and rendering

Custom made networking library (uses UDP) -- I initially used kyroNet/TCP but found it to be too laggy

Pauls Sound library

Leola for scripting

Any and all feedback is welcomed! Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

Looks cool. The character in the third screenshot reminds me of the Green Beret from Commandos. Will download this and give it a try when I get home tonight.

...

Fast forward a few hours, and I've tried it. Once again, very cool. It's looking promising. I really liked the fog-of-war/visibility effect. The controls felt a bit foreign at first, but I soon got used to them, and they suit the game well. A few issues & suggestions:

- Clicking on a weapon in the 'choose weapon menu' when in game will cause your character to shoot (not a good outcome with the rocket launcher). EDIT: Started playing again and it's stopped doing that now :S.

- For the few short seconds that I played multiplayer on "the seventh server", it was extremely laggy, to the point of being unplayable. Not sure if this is a networking issue, or a hosting issue (in which case, no big deal). EDIT: Just discovered I was getting ping between 200 to >300ms; understandable I guess.

- The mouse cursor feels a bit 'off' when in the settings menu. Play around and you'll see what I mean. It's only a minor issue.

- Perhaps you could implement some kind of "auto reload on mouse-click when empty"? It felt a bit clumsy having to hit R all the time.

@nerb - Thank you! You are correct, clicking on the weapon select button doesn't consume the button click (this is a bug). The server is being hosted by DigitalOcean in New York, I'm thinking of purchasing another one in San Francisco. I'm guessing if you are outside of the US your ping rate will not be too good.

What resolution were you playing at? I'm curious if that may be the cause of having the cursor feel a bit off. The weapons should auto-reload once the clip is dispensed (and there is more ammo) -- if that is not the case it is most likely a bug.

@CTucker - Thanks! I use NIO -- DatagramChannel and Selector. The general strategy is to send UDP packets every 33 milliseconds. A packet can contain multiple NetMessages (a NetMessage is some game specific message). A NetMessage can be marked as reliable or unreliable, if the former the network library will keep resending the message until the client acknowledges it received it. Only a select few messages are marked as reliable, so this helps keep network traffic minimal.

Thank you for taking the time to play it, and I really appreciate the feedback!

@nerb -- The hit box for the menu items was a bit too small for the text, I adjusted them so hopefully now they feel correct.

@Genius Coder -- It's just a matter of getting the right reading material. There is so much out there already on how to design fast paced action games. I recommend reading http://fabiensanglard.net/quake3/network.php as good starting point. If you have any particular questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them.

@Slyth2727 -- Thanks! My buddy is chugging along on the art work, I'm excited to show off his new stuff which should be done in a couple of days.

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